1. Technical Field
The invention relates to a control apparatus for an autonomous operating vehicle, particularly to a control apparatus for a vehicle that autonomously travels to perform work or operation, e.g., mow lawn.
2. Background Art
In an autonomous operating vehicle that autonomously travels to perform work or operation such as mowing lawn in a defined operating (travel-scheduled) area, it is necessary to detect a border of the area. Therefore, magnets are embedded on the border and a sensor sensing the magnets is mounted on the vehicle to detect the border, as taught, for example, by Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. Sho 60 (1985)-239812 ('812).
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. Hei 8 (1996)-286738 ('738) discloses a technique to embed an electric wire along the border and detect generated magnetic field by a sensor mounted on an operating vehicle, thereby detecting the border. Since the border of the area can be detected through the techniques of '812 and '738, when a travel pattern is determined in advance for example, it makes possible to control the vehicle to travel based on a traveling direction calculated from an output of a mounted angular velocity sensor.